Armor Class and BAB

Jun 26th

Posted by John Payne in OSR Project

I’m one of those people that didn’t have an issue with descending armor class. Maybe I should have, I dunno.

I also have nothing at all against the d20 mechanic and ascending armor class.

So what do you do in a retroclone? Do you follow the spirit of the old ruleset and have a To Hit table like OSRIC and Swords & Wizardry? You could use the table and manually write a “To Hit Armor Class 0″ on the character sheet.

You could go the route of Dark Dungeons and use something like thac0 and a to hit table and come up with Attack Rank. Attack Rank A =  thac0: 20, Attack Rank B = thac0: 19 and so on until you reach Attack Rank S = thac0: 2. It takes until Attack Rank X to be thac0: 1 and then it descends again throughout Attack Rank Z to Attack Rank XX. Again, you can pretty much convert an Attack Rank into a thac0, cross out the Attack Rank letter on the character sheet and substitute a thac0 number.

You could go the Basic Fantasy route and just use Base Attack Bonus and ascending armor class. In this case, you take your old material, perform a 10-AC conversion and make appropriate notes throughout that penalties to target’s AC are really bonuses to attackers’ to hit roll.

Which one?

For now, I plan on using a Successful Attack Target Number or SATN. (considering the consternation created by thac0 discussions, I think the acronym is a perfect fit!)

The forumla will work like this:

Roll 1d20 +modifiers + target’s AC >= SATN is a hit.

The beauty of this system is that when I see thac0 in my old modules, I treat it as the SATN. Thanks to the additive property of equality, the result is the same. Don’t believe me? Look it up on any thac0 discussion. Also, let’s follow this example:

Brad, a 2nd level Fighter has a thac0 of 19. He is attacking a goblin with an AC of 6. With a STR of 15, he receives a +1 to Hit.

Roll is 13. Add bonus to hit to increase the total to 14. Take thac0 (19) and subtract the armor class: 19-6 = 13. The roll of 14 is greater than 13, so the attack is successful.

now try this:

Brad a 2nd level Warrior has a SATN of 19. He is attacking a goblin with AC of 6. With a STR of 15, he receives a +1 to hit.

Roll is 13. 13 + 1 (STR Bonus) + 6 (Target AC) = 20. This is larger than the SATN of 19, so the attack is successful.

On the GM side of the screen, 2nd Edition monsters appears with a thac0. The GM does the same calculation as the players when rolling for the goblin.

The other thing this mechanic allows (you know essentially keeping the thac0), is that this allows fiddling with monsters. More on that later.

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Noctivagant – Idea of a New Creature

Jun 9th

Posted by John Payne in Electrum Pieces

In the dictionary, the word noctivagant appears like this:

noctivagant: adj. Going about in the night; night-wandering. [L. nox, noctis, night + vagans, p. pr. of vagari to wander about.]

So in essence, this would be a creature that evokes the description of  “The Night Wanderer”.

Intro Level Creature Idea

Assuming that this would be for a low-level party ranging from levels 1-3, this could be a kind of undead. When encountered, this humanoid creature appears to walking deliberately to some unknown destination. Upon closer inspection, the creature eyes are closed. It does not respond to any normals attempts to communicate. The special ability would be a sleepwalking effect on all creatures that come within 60 feet that fail a saving throw. The sleepwalking effect would basically cause those affected to have all the effects of a sleep spell, but would also be compelled to walk slowly in a random direction while within 60 feet of the noctivagant or 10 rounds, whichever is greater. Under the influence of the sleepwalking ability, an affected creature can walk into trees, step off cliffs, etc. They cannot, however, climb or perform any other action other than walking. If a creature dies under the influence of a noctivagant, they become one. Once they become a noctivagant, they are no longer in danger of walking into trees or off cliffs, etc.

Being attacked breaks the effect of the sleepwalking ability.

In the end, this is like more of a nuisance than threat.

A Devious GM

However, take one of these and waltz them into a village and now the character cannot tell which is the noctivagant and which are the victims of the attack. Characters that favor combat as a solution will end up creating more of these things. A clever PC may attempt a “Talk to Dead” spell. Victims of the sleepwalking ability aren’t dead, so will not respond. Still, the PC may not be close enough to the noctivagant to get the desired effect.

Come to think of it, these things could really wreak havoc. Get an elf (immune to sleep) to collect one of these and unleash it into huge crowds. (Who says there’s no such thing as an elven jester?) Better yet, an adventurer could take one of these and turn it into a necromancer’s idea of a ten foot pole. Why poke and prod looking for traps when this thing, which is already dead, can just walk in and trigger everything.

I could see this as something a necromancer initiate would create. One of these could certainly disperse the “peasant angry mob”. It could even divert small armies away.

Stats coming later. Nothing more than 2 Hit Dice.

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summation

Netbooks and Spellcasters

Jun 9th

Posted by John Payne in Electrum Pieces

Unearthed Arcania is one of those supplements that I found later in my gaming career that I wish I had found much earlier. For completeness, I also would have liked Rhyme of the Ancient Spelljammer and Temporum Sphaera. (I currently have all three now.) Sometime ago, I also found a netbook called Wizard’s Netbook that provides all kinds of spellcaster variation. I could list a lot more of them, but if you remember them at all, you probably have all the same ones I have.

As an aside, do any of you have the Spell Markup Language?  Fun to read…

Anyway, there’s something about the wealth of the house rules that inspire all kinds of creative possibilities. I plan on adapting a well playtested spell point variant to the OSR Project. Spell points available would be properly notated like this:

and add 1 to the result.

The spell level limitation will be per the Microlite 20 Core Rules – Spells can be cast with a spell level equal or below 1/2 a spellcaster’s level, rounded up. The cost to cast a spell will be 2* spell level. Cantrips will cost 1 point. Owing to my OSR ways, all of this information will be presented in a chart that looks something like this:

Level Spell Points Max Spell Level
1 2 1
2 4 1
3 7 2
4 11 2
5 16 3
6 22 3
7 29 4
8 37 4
9 46 5
10 56 5
11 67 6
12 79 6
13 92 7
14 106 7
15 121 8
16 137 8
17 154 9
18 172 9
19 191 9
20 211 9

For those that wonder, this makes them weaker than standard spellcasters – the effect is that noticeable until around 10th level or so. As a result, the XP required to advance to the next level is approx 10% less than a standard spellcaster. Debate now swings around Meditation in lieu of sleep. Basically, 3 hrs meditation = 8 hours sleep.

More later.

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